left4deadfandomcom-20200222-history
Carriers
A Carrier is a person exposed to the Infection who appears asymptomatic due to a natural resistance to symptoms but lacks an immune response to degrade the disease. Without degradation, the person "carries" the disease in their body and can unintentionally transmit the disease to others rendering carriers a threat to public safety. The application of Carriers to the Left 4 Dead world is another story element (like the Green Flu) that has received no official or definitive explanation by Valve. Rather, there are random graffiti, in-game conversations, and posters throughout the game that suggest how carriers were handled by both CEDA and the military. __toc__ Carrier VS. Immunity It is a highly misconceived notion that the terms carrier and immune are one in the same when in fact their meanings are very different. Completely immune individuals are people who are not resistant to the symptoms of a disease but have an unnaturally fast and strong immune response that fights off the disease quickly. Put another way, immune individuals have had an immune system response to the disease and do not carry or can transmit the disease. Carriers have no immune response, usually due to a genetic factor or defect in the body that inhibits the disease from growing or causing symptoms. It's difficult to determine which is more advantagous. Just because someone is immune to a virus doesn't mean they're safe forever. Since an immune response depends on the body's detection of the virus (antigen detection), a previously immune person could become symptomatic in the likely case that the virus changes or mutates. In contrast, it's hard to say if a carrier would ever become symptomatic to a virus that has undergone changes or mutations. One certainly could but as said before, a carrier's lack of symptoms is typically detemined by a discrepancy (usually genetic) in the human cells that prevent a virus from attaching. It's highly unlikely that a virus would be able to change accordingly. One must also consider the long term benefits of either being immune or a carrier. In theory, the outbreak will continue until it is contained or there are no more viable hosts. As long as carriers continue to exist, the infection exists and threatens the survival of immune and non-immune individuals. Natural Selection will win eventually. However, it s unknown if only Carriers or Immunes will be left at the end of everything. CEDA/Containment To learn of a carrier, there must have been proof that someone who was asymptomatic was infecting normal healthy people. Therefore, it's likely that CEDA inadvertently caused the infection of thousands by grouping all non-infected individuals together before realizing that there were carriers among them. The next step would have been to quarantine and test each asymptomatic survivor to see if they tested positive for the Green Flu. Such tests would likely taken hours and when you're having to test hundreds of thousands of people, all while the apocalypse is occurring, the general population would probably have little to no patience to wait. If CEDA was overrun by unruly citizens fleeing the infection, then containment would have failed and CEDA was likely pulled from running the show. The Military When containment turns into a calamity, desperate measures are necessary. This includes bringing in more powerful guns and deadly force into an already lose-lose scenario. From evidence presented in the games, the military was brought in with one thing on their mind, stop the spread of the infection by any means necessary. After consulting with the remaining members of CEDA, army medical scientists would have to first come up with a new scenario that helps identify carriers. Thus, a "save now, ask later" procedure would likely have been presumed as the the safest option. In such a parameter, any and all non-infected individuals were extracted from the contaminated cities using heavily armed and inpenetrable vehicles i.e. helicopters and/or steel-plated/reinforced ATV's. Upon safe arrival at a central post, all survivors would be quarantined together and determined if they were immune or carriers. The next step is unknown. There is grafitti which supports that the military were separating carriers from immune survivors. At the same time, there is additional grafitti that claims the military were lining up carriers against a firing squad. Besides grafitti, there has been no concrete evidence as to what happened next. By the time the Parish Campaign had started, the military was carpet bombing entire cities. The airstrikes weren't very surgical (since most of the missiles miss the survivors in the campaign) which suggests that the military had pulled out, surmising that any remaining evacuees had become infected or been killed. Otherwise, they would only be targeting infected instead of doing clean sweeps. As with other story elements in Left 4 Dead, there is an extremely large hole in explaning the military's involvement in containment and with carriers. As of the end of Left 4 Dead 2, the military were still in charge of containment and are therefore also in charge of carriers. Notes * A comment from Bill suggests that his group of Survivors, including himself, could turn at any moment. This indicates that he may be concerned that they are all Carriers who are just extremely resistant to the Infection, but may turn eventually. ** As heard in the beta, Bill seemed to be quite paranoid that any of the Survivors could turn into the Infected at any moment. ** Alternatively, Bill may just be concerned that the Survivors' immunity may not last forever, and that he does not want to live if he becomes an Infected. * It's unknown exactly how the virus spreads from a Carrier to an uninfected person. CEDA signs and Survivor graffiti has confirmed that it was originally believed to be an airborne virus, but isn't. It's implied through the quarantine of Carriers and the "Wash your hands" signs that it's now believed to spread upon contact. This is further supported by the Church Guy, who became infected after he was bitten. * When the new Survivors in Left 4 Dead 2 tell the soldiers that they are immune (during The Bridge chapter), Papa Gator asks Rescue 7 if he is equipped for Carriers, which Rescue 7 acknowledges. This indicates that they are concerned that the Survivors are Carriers. However, seeing as they are covered in Infected blood, guts, spit, and bile, it is likely that the military would need an Infection-proof helicopter to transport them until they can be decontaminated (or killed so they can't infect anyone). * Several pieces of graffiti indicate that the military are just lining people against a wall and shooting them in a firing-squad type of manner. ** Several other Survivors have countered this by saying that they are Infected and are being shot to protect everyone. Despite the military's harsh nature, Survivor graffiti states they still seem to prefer the military over CEDA. References Category:The Survivors Category:Left 4 Dead 2 Category:The Infected